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What I've Been Reading

1) The Final Solution by Michael Chabon. More a short story than a book, this is a delicious little novella that is very satisfying and ends with a perfect hollow ache. Detective story, sort of. Wonderfully written in that Chabonesque way that made Amazing Adventures so good. I'm trying to think of how to describe it but falling short. It's stylized, but not caricature. It's rich and layered but not busy or distracting. It's the opposite of spare, but it's not embellished. There's a hint of humor everywhere. It's a fun little romp.

2) The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. My mom loaned me this book; her review is here. I like reading about these topics: emotion and reason and why they tug us in different directions sometimes, studies on contentment and fulfillment and absorbtion and satisfaction and what measurable conditions seem to contribute to those things, why we want things that don't make us happy, etc. I've read a lot of books on similar subjects: Flow, The Paradox of Choice, Flourishing, How To Want What You Have, Listening to Prozac, The Morel Animal, etc. etc. This one is very good, and probably a good starting place if you're interested in the subject. Haidt distills psychological and neurological studies about human behavior, attachment, altruism, satisfaction, and also examines philosophy and religion for what they have to say about the same topics.

He's a trustworthy narrator, writing at a good level for me. He's a good chronicler of the studies that have been done, and gives you enough reference points so you can read further if you like. He's thoughtful and reflective and occasionally personal, but he's clear to delineate on those occasions when he leaves the realm of science and makes his own speculations. He's a very good writer, too.

Essentially, what I learned about happiness is this.

There's a formula. H = S + C + V. Your level of experienced happiness
(H), is equal to your genetic setpoint (S), plus the conditions of your
life (C), plus the voluntary activities you undertake (V). There's not
much you can do about S -- some of us are born with a sunny
disposition, a tendency toward optimism and extroversion and
contentment, and others aren't. The three ways you can adjust S are
meditation, prozac or other seritonin reuptake inhibitors, and
something called cognitive therapy.

The conditions of life, C, is the part a lot of us spin our wheels on
trying to adjust. That's the things we acquire: looking good, having
lots of money or things, how many friends we have, where we live, what
we drive, the surroundings and trappings of our lives. This part, C,
doesn't really tend to make us very happy. We constantly overestimate
the impact that a change in our life conditions will have on our
happiness -- people who win the lottery aren't happier, and people who
lose the use of their limbs aren't sadder. We adjust to our conditions
pretty quickly, and then it's the setpoint and our voluntary activities
that really have an impact on our happiness. But there are a few
things about C that we never adjust to, and these are worth working to
fix: a lousy commute makes people less happy, disturbing noise in our
environment is something we don't adjust to, a sense of control over
our environment matters, a feeling of shame is worth fixing (so people
who get plastic surgery might in fact be happier, if they're correcting
something about themselves that makes them ashamed), and the biggest
one of all: relationships matter. We never adjust to conflict, so
relationships that are full of conflict stress us out even when the
person isn't present (because we're worrying about them). And people
who have lots of attachments and friendships are happier than people
who have fewer; people who are married live longer, etc. So those are
the components of C that are worth expending energy on. Love is the
biggest one, of course. Money doesn't seem to matter, once you're
above the poverty line.

V, voluntary activities, is the component about attention. It's what
you choose to do with your mind, and what you choose to do with your
time and energy. There's not a big newsflash here (or anywhere in the
book, really): doing good makes people feel better, more content and satisfied. Work that gives
people a sense of purpose and meaning, and that connects them to other
people, is satisfying. But although the results or conditions of our
life don't matter so much, having a sense of progress toward a goal is
immensely satisfying. So taking steps forward and seeing the payoff of
what you do everyday does matter, even if the brass ring at the end of
the line might not change your life. Feeling like what you do matters,
to you and to other people and to the world, in a way that seems
obvious and good, is important. Part of that we control with our
attitude, and part of it is about making career and volunteer choices
that line up with our values and personal strengths.

He covers more than this -- he covers religion and transcendence from a
pretty interesting perspective. Haidt himself is an athiest, raised
Jewish, but through his work he comes to admire and respect religion
pretty deeply, although he doesn't become a believer. The book is
worth a read, and I may even buy myself a copy, because there's enough
in it that I'll probably want to look back at the book to review
chapters. I suspect if I read it again I would notice different
things. There's a lot in there, too much to absorb fully on a quick
read.

3) It's been interesting to also be reading Mere Christianity (albeit slowly, with a lot of interruptions) at the same time as this. I find CS Lewis likeable and clear as a writer, but hardly persuasive. Especially reading him in concert with something like the Haidt book, or The Moral Animal, which talk about our emotions and our moral pulls from a physiological or evolutionary psychology point of view, I can't join CS Lewis in concluding that the existence of God is the only explanation for our moral longings, or that Christ is the only way to reconcile forgiveness and moral fallibility. He sets up a scenario, posits the answer, and then plows onward as though the case is watertight. Has any doubter or skeptic actually been converted by this book? It lacks an emotional force. This is going to sound strange, but I actually find the tone of CS Lewis similar to the voice of Scott Adams on his Dilbert Blog. Likeable, friendly, straightforward, opinionated, a little bit smug, enjoying the argument for the sake of it. It's fun to read but it doesn't feel like it gets at the heart of faith. What do I know about faith? I know it's pulling at me, but hasn't found its hold yet. I'm not finished this book. Maybe the second half will make me drop to my knees.

4) The Autobiography of Ben Franklin. A quick little read, this leaves me wanting more. I'm enjoying the book but there's something flat about it. I don't trust Franklin, either -- he was very shrewd and canny, which he cheerfully admits, and I'm not sure he's telling us everything worth knowing about himself in this autobiography. He's writing it conscious of his audience, and it's not particularly personal. There's more in it about the right design for a streetlamp than about his wife, for example. Still, he's a remarkable man and a pretty entertaining writer. I'll read a real biography next, from someone who can put his life and decisions and achievements and self-characterization into a context for me.

5) Is that all? I should be reading Their Eyes Were Watching God, for book group this Sunday. Better pick it up.

Mere Christianity is a difficult read because they were written to be read aloud - the book is a series of radio addresses - and although Lewis is one of my favorite authors of all time - I fall asleep everytime I pick up MC.